Pages

Wednesday, May 07, 2014

Humans most
often justify their actions based on the consequences the actions provoke. In
other words, we constantly weigh the intensity and duration of pain and
pleasure an action would inflict upon us to justify our action. In the same
way, we base our morality on consequences. Let us take the virtue of altruism.
Why are we altruistic? A religious explanation of being altruistic would evoke
the principles of punya and karma. If we help others, someday we
would be helped. A rational explanation says that if the virtue of altruism,
which involves the sacrifice of an individual’s pleasure, is upheld, it would
benefit the society as a whole in the long run. In other words, the pain or
discomfort that an act of altruism inflicts upon individuals will increase the
pleasure of the society as a whole, in the long run when it is emulated by
others. An emotional explanation stresses the happiness of a ‘high’ quality one
attains in helping others, that makes the act of altruism morally defensible. All
these explanations involve a utilitarian
logic that pain and pleasure are the sovereign masters of
human beings, as with the case of all lives on earth. Thus, altruism enjoys
moral sanction as long as it is useful to the individual or society as a whole,
in the long-run or short-run. Feeding a cow is a more useful, both spiritually and
materially, than feeding a pig, thus the former attains a greater moral
acceptance than the latter. One may
argue that acts of altruism among primary groups and close acquaintances need
not be utilitarian in their motive and are not necessarily be conditioned by
reciprocal obligations and indirect benefits. But such altruism, though need
not be conditioned by the consequences, is certainly conditioned by the persons
involved, thus becoming the most subjective form of altruism.

Why should
not we help others, not because doing so benefits us or makes us happy or just
because the person is known to us, but for the sake of helping others? In other
words, why should we always view our actions as means to some other goal, rather
than viewing it as a duty and end in itself?

Immanuel
Kant, regarded as one of the greatest modern philosophers, gives an innovative
definition of morality through his equally innovative notion of freedom. Kant
says that all human beings are sacred and have dignity, neither because they are ‘useful’ in some way nor because
they possess themselves, but for they are autonomous
and rational beings. We are beings capable
of reason and of acting and choosing freely. By making this statement, he
clearly deviates both from utilitarian and libertarian explanations of human
freedom. While the utilitarian logic subjects individual’s freedom to the pain
or pleasure it produces to the society, the libertarian logic views every
individual as a separate being with a separate life worthy of respect, thus not
to be used as an instrument for the benefit of the society. The libertarians’ argument
is based on the principle of self-possession and they believe that we have the
right to choose freely, to live our lives as we please, provided that we allow
other individuals to pursue their rights in the same way. Though Immanuel Kant
seems to endorse the libertarian line of reasoning, he makes a distinction from
the libertarians by giving a more demanding notion of freedom.

Kant admits that we act according to the pain
and pleasure choosing the latter over the former. But he asserts that the two
are not the sovereign masters of us, as the utilitarian’s claim, because the
rational capacity inherent in us sets us apart from and above mere animal
existence. Kant places the source of
human freedom not in the idea of self-possession, as the libertarians claim,
but in the fact that we are rational and autonomous beings.

Kant says
that freedom is not about doing whatever we want or the absence of obstacles in
doing whatever we want, as we normally interpret. Doing whatever we want means
acting according to nature’s appetite, preferring pleasure and avoiding pain.
Thus, by doing so, we become slaves of pain and pleasure, reducing ourselves to
mere animal existence. We start obeying the wants and preferences that we have
never chosen. For example, choosing jeans over other varieties of pants not
necessarily means that we are free enough to choose jeans, but it means that we
obey our desire to wear jeans. The desire does not purely arise out of our own
free will and pure reason but arises out of our attraction toward jeans and our
perceived necessity to be fashionable. For Kant, necessity is the opposite of
freedom and so an action which is done out of necessity can never be an act of
freedom.

Then what
constitutes a free act? According to Kant, to act freely and to become
autonomous is to act according to a law that one gives to oneself based on pure
reason, independent of the external physical laws and the laws of cause and
effect. Kant derives his definition of morality through his definition of
freedom by explaining three contrasts.

The first
contrast he explains deals with the imperative of our desires. To be moral, our
desires should arise from a categorical imperative rather than a
hypothetical
one. While hypothetical imperative uses cause and effect relationships
for explaining the desire, the categorical imperative makes the action not as a
means to some other end but an end in itself and is based on a pure reason. For
example, if I help others so that I feel good, then the motive of the action is
hypothetical. If I help others considering it as a duty with no further
purpose, then the motive is categorical.

The second
contrast Kant explains deals with the freedom. If the motive of our desire is
categorical, then it implies that we are truly autonomous in the
determination of the will. If our motives are ulterior, having multiple ends,
then our determination of will cannot be autonomous, but is “heteronomous”,
a term coined by Kant specially to explain this concept.

Kant defines
what morality is, through his third contrast. Our actions are moral, only
insofar as they are done with duty as its motive rather than an inclination
towards something else. Here, duty refers to an action derived from the
categorical imperative with an autonomous determination of will.

“A good will isn’t good
because of what it effects or accomplishes, it’s good in itself. Even if by
utmost effort the good will accomplishes nothing it would still shine like a
jewel for its own sake as something which has its full value in itself.”

-Immanuel Kant

Kant
furthers his explanation by saying that when we do our actions out of pure
reason, with a free determination of will, without using it for satisfying our
external necessities, we will not end up using fellow human beings as
instruments for furthering our own ends and desires. This is because when Kant
says our actions should be performed as an end in itself, he means that, we
should not use even ourselves as an instrument for satisfying external
necessities. Kant, hereby, lays the groundwork for universal human rights,
within the framework of his own theory of morality. In Kant’s words,

“ I say that man, and
in general every rational being, exists as an end in himself, not merely as a
means for arbitrary use by this or that will. “

Kant also
says that the concept of morality cannot be explained by science. Morality, for
Kant, is independent of natural laws and forces and hence, it is not empirical.
Science can explain what humans do but it cannot explain what humans want to
do. This explanation of Kant is well illustrated by the recent researches on altruism
in the fields of neurobiology and genetics. Though they try to explain the
evolution and the mechanism behind altruism, they can never explain how it
should be. This might be the reason why Kant named his book “Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals”
rather than something like “Science of Morality”.

Kant’s
definition of morality gives rise to three important questions which help in
better understanding of his ideas.

Question 1: The actions which are done out of
pure reason, drawn by a categorical imperative, would be useful to us in many
ways. Does that make the actions lose its moral worth?

Kant
addresses this question by explaining that while the moral worth of an action
is determined by its pure reason, it does not lose its moral worth as long as
it possesses the pure reason, irrespective of it serving other purposes. The
action may have both categorical and hypothetical imperatives, but it is of
moral worth as long as it possesses the categorical imperative.

Question 2: If we perform an action in such a
way that it fits in to Kant’s definition of morality, isn’t it self-defeating
that it is done not for the sake of it but for the purpose of being moral?

Kant
responds to this objection by saying that there is only one incentive for a
person who performs actions in accordance with morality, which is nothing but
the reverence for morality. Thus Kant claims that an action remains moral
insofar it is not done for any other incentive but for the reverence for the moral law
itself.

Question 3: If every human has his/her own law
for doing things, won’t the morality become highly subjective? Is it impossible
to have a universal law of morality?

Kant says
that morality becomes subjective only when an action is done out of
hypothetical imperative and inclinations. When an action is done out of pure reason,
without corresponding to the external laws, every human will arrive at a same
definition for a moral action. This is because of the fact that the pure
reason, which is the driving force of a moral action, is one and the same for
every human being. Thus, morality though seems to be subjective, is universal
and same for every rational being.

While Kant’s
account of morality extends beyond the above principles to the more complicated
“Formula of Universal Law”, “Formula of Humanity as an End” and many more, they
are beyond the scope of this essay.

I feel that
Kant’s idea gains greater significance when applied to the act of acquiring
knowledge. The act of acquiring knowledge, in any form through any means,
should be treated as an end in itself. Though gaining knowledge will sure lead
to various benefits, those benefits should not be the prime motive behind the
act.

Thus, I
conclude by confessing that I started reading about Kant’s works as a part of my
preparations for entrance exams. Admired by the idea and convinced by the arguments, I ended up
writing about them unmindful of the fact that doing so will be of trivial or
no use to anyone!